Meet Your Favorite Celebrity And Seized By The Urge To Lick Him/Her? Read This Comic First

Thanks to Twitter and Tumblr, in this day and age we feel extra-close to our favorite celebrities, because when they’re tweeting and posting Instagram pics it’s like they’re normal people. If you live in major cities and subscribe to sites like Gawker Stalker or On Location Vacations, you have a fairly good chance of actually running into those stars and getting to pose for an awkward hug photo. However, there are some ground rules and caveats to getting to fulfill these lifelong fantasies. You can’t just spaz out, because think of how utterly creepy that would be.

Thankfully, the comic series Awkward Celebrity Encountersillustrates the dos and don’ts of having a successful celebrity encounter that doesn’t end with their pretty faces twisted in confusion and disgust and you wanting to decapitate yourself with a clapperboard. Writer-illustrator Abby has collected her reader-submitted stories into a handy guide for how to properly conduct yourself. What’s especially smart is that her comic is grounded in logic—like how technically you’re bombarding these people at work, and they’re exhausted at having to always be “on.”

Most of her guide focuses on physical boundaries. I can see why fans would have trouble controlling the impulse of not actually hugging/kissing/licking/grinding on the people who have played their dream boyfriends or bad boys. Who am I kidding—when I got to interview Jason Segel a few years ago, I wanted so badly to hug him. We’re only human. However, you have to take the requisite step back — two, even — and consider that though you think you know these people well, they’re still strangers.

Oh, and “The Hiddleston Paradox” is so, so true.

Read the rest of the comic here, and make sure to follow Awkward Celebrity Encounters for the latest submissions from people who got just a little crazy when confronted with their dream star. Like, the guy who had the worst thought about Peter Dinklage, or the woman who did the “you go left, I’ll go right” dance in an elevator with Tina Fey. If they can joke about their celebrity missteps, so can you.